LOBBYING WHEN THE DECISION-MAKER CAN ACQUIRE INDEPENDENT INFORMATION

Politicians trade off the cost of acquiring and processing information against the benefit of being re-elected. Lobbyists may possess privat e information upon which politicians would like to rely without the ef fort of verification. If the politician does not try to verify, howeve r, the lobbyist has no incentive to be truthful. This is modelled as a game in which the lobbyist lobbies to show his conviction that the el ectorate is on his side. In equilibrium, sometimes the politician inve stigates, and sometimes the information is false. The lobbyists and th e electorate benefit from the possibility of lobbying when the politic ian would otherwise vote in ignorance, but not when he would otherwise acquire his own information. The politician benefits in either case. Lobbying is most socially useful when the politician's investigation c osts are high, when he is more certain of the electorate's views, and when the issue is less important.